


Summer Holidays

by thelemonisinplay



Series: my housemates now [4]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelemonisinplay/pseuds/thelemonisinplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the long summer break, and each of the MJN crew is spending it slightly differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Carolyn

_Morning!! :)_

Carolyn stared, bleary-eyed, at the text on her phone. From Arthur. Of course.

It was eight o’clock in the morning, and Arthur had gone home for the summer. Carolyn, on the other hand, was staying in Fitton – at almost twenty-five, the prospect of returning to her parents’ house for three months was not appealing in the slightest. She’d gone home last year, but then last year the sweetshop had kept an employment slot open for her. And in any case, their old flatmate, Nigel, had stayed in their Fitton flat that summer, and Carolyn hadn’t especially wanted to spend several months being bored out of her mind before he’d finally moved out at the end of August.

In any case, Carolyn was still in Fitton, working slightly more regular hours at the local café than she worked during term time. And for the first time in Arthur’s twenty years, she and her brother were spending the summer apart.

Thinking that she’d reply later, Carolyn pushed her phone aside and slid out of bed to get ready for a full day in the café.

The kitchen was already occupied when Carolyn walked in for breakfast. Douglas, wearing nothing but boxers, was peering into the fridge, apparently also looking for food.

“Please put some clothes on,” Carolyn said, more out of habit than anything – after sharing the flat with him for two years, she was really rather desensitised to the sight of a shirtless Douglas.

Douglas turned around to face her, clutching a single egg. “You’re up early,” he said, and then, waving the egg at her, “are there any more of these? I wanted an omelette for breakfast, but we don’t have a great deal of food in.”

“I don’t know, it was meant to be your turn to do the shopping,” said Carolyn, shrugging carelessly. She grabbed the last two slices of bread and slid them into the toaster.

“No, it’s your turn!” He was still clutching the egg, which rather ruined the carefully cultivated frown of irritation on his face.

Carolyn smiled in a way that she rather suspected would be described as ‘sharky’. “Well, I’ve got to leave for work in half an hour, so if you want your omelette, I can only suggest that you pop out to Tesco’s.”

Douglas scowled. “I’ve got work, too. And I’m out tonight.”

“As am I.”

“I’m sure your _boyfriend_ will understand if you’re late.”

Carolyn sighed heavily and fixed him with a disapproving look, but elected to say nothing about his use of the word ‘boyfriend’. She knew only too well that he was doing it solely to irritate her, and ignoring his use of it felt like a tiny victory.

“Yes,” she said, in a carefully indifferent tone. “What are you doing tonight that’s so important, anyway? Do you have a date or something?”

“I do, as it happens. Girl from work, couldn’t keep her eyes off me, the usual,” said Douglas carelessly. “Your toast’s done, by the way,” he added, nodding towards the toaster behind her.

“Oh. Well. Have a nice date, and see if you can squeeze a Tesco’s trip into your lunch hour. I’ve got to go and get ready for work.”

Carolyn fished the toast from the toaster and left the room, getting almost halfway back to her bedroom before realising she’d forgotten to spread jam on it.

-*-

She finished work at four, after a long, dull day of serving grumpy, rude middle-aged men and nervous teenagers on dates. It had been a longer shift than usual – most days, she started at eleven, but one of the other waitresses was away on holiday, so Carolyn had been asked to pick up the extra morning hours. Slightly more exhausted than usual, she felt that she really deserved a bottle of wine. And so she popped into Tesco’s after work – and if she happened to pick up other things, like eggs, and bread, and rice … well, it was just convenience, really.

And if she showed up back at their flat to put it all away before she went over to Herc’s … well, she might have accidentally left it at Herc’s, otherwise. She had no intention of doing _his_ food shopping for him.

Just to be sure that Douglas wouldn’t be labouring under the delusion that she was being nice, though, she waited until he was halfway through his date before bothering to let him know that there was food in.

 **To:** Douglas Richardson

_Staying at H’s. Bought some food, so don’t bother. Hope your date wasn’t a total disaster._

**From:** Douglas Richardson

_Oh good, that means my date can stay at ours. Thanks for getting food._

-*-

Herc, being the sort of person who became very sleepy after ingesting even the slightest bit of alcohol, pulled her by the hand into bed at about ten o’clock.

“Sorry about this,” he said, his eyes fluttering closed as he pulled her into his arms. “Though it’s your fault, you know, you bought the wine.”

“Yes, well, it saved having to spend too much time talking to you,” said Carolyn. She was smiling rather more soppily than she would have done in a usual situation, but given that Herc was very nearly asleep, she felt that she was probably safe.

He didn’t say anything else after that, which Carolyn took to mean that he was sleeping, so she kissed him softly and then rolled over to go to sleep herself. She was just beginning to drift off when, all of a sudden, a foggy recollection of an early-morning text came to her.

Arthur had texted her. And she hadn’t replied.

Slipping out of bed as quietly as she could, she made her way out into the hallway where her bag was, pulled out her phone, and quickly composed a response to her younger brother.

 **To:** Arthur Shappey

_Sorry, busy day. Goodnight, dear heart._

 


	2. Martin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten about this fic! I've just been busy with university (I'm in third year, so work is neverending). I have vague plans for the other two chapters, but I can't promise they'll be written or uploaded any time soon.
> 
> And I know Finnemore said in a blog post that the Crieff sibling order is Simon, Martin, Caitlin, but... well, this AU has always run by the assumption that the order is actually Caitlin, Martin, Simon. So I'm just quietly going to pretend that Finnemore never said that.
> 
> Anyway, I'm posting this half an hour before the final part of Zurich - so I am Very Afraid.

“Have your results come in yet, Martin?” asked Simon. Martin looked up from the latest edition of _Aeroplane Monthly_ to see his younger brother standing in the doorway of the living room, already dressed but unshaven, in that late-teenage way that appears grubby rather than stubbly.

“No,” Martin said, for what must have been the twenty-fifth time that week. “Have yours?”

“No, not yet. I’m going back up to Cambridge for a few days to drop some stuff off in the house. I suppose you don’t need to do that.”

Martin returned his attention to _Aeroplane Monthly_ , irritated. He wasn’t sure if it was the constant exposure after most of a year apart, or the fact that Caitlin wasn’t living at home anymore to act as a sort of buffer between them, but he was finding Simon even more unbearable than usual lately. If it wasn’t him rubbing it in that they were in the same year at uni – Martin had had to take a year out, after being rejected during his first application, whereas Simon had got in straight away – he also had to go on about him being in Cambridge. Granted, he was at Anglia Ruskin rather than _the_ University of Cambridge, but he always sounded so smug about the whole thing. And he wouldn’t shut up about results, like he didn’t know that he’d come out with a high 2:1 at the very least, whereas Martin would be lucky to scrape up a 2:2.

He’d been round to see Caitlin a couple of times, but that had just descended into the usual petty bickering. Which was embarrassing in the aftermath, given that all the arguing had taken place in Cat’s flat, in front of her live-in girlfriend, Jane.

The only saving grace of the summer so far – other than the communications with his uni friends (particularly Arthur, unsurprisingly) – had been helping his dad out at work. Tony Crieff was an electrician, and Martin had spent the summer driving his father’s van and occasionally passing him a bit of electrical equipment, and was paid in a small share of Tony’s wage. It wasn’t quite as fancy as Simon’s three-week internship with Wokingham Council, but it was something to do, and spending time with his father was infinitely less frustrating than spending time with his siblings.

So, the following week, two days into the four-day respite from his brother, receiving a text that said _Got my results! Scraped a first! Do you have yours yet?_ was most unwelcome.

Martin’s first reaction was, as ever, one of mild panic. He opened up the group conversation between himself and the rest of his flat on Facebook. _Do any of you have your results yet??_ , he typed in; and then messaged everybody else he was even remotely friendly with. Just to be certain that they hadn’t mixed things up, he told himself, mind spinning with the number of ways his results could have been lost.

Martin’s phone chimed with a call only minutes after he’d posted in the Facebook message, and, unsurprisingly, it was Arthur.

“Hi Martin,” he said brightly, and then, without waiting for a response, “I don’t have my results yet. Do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Martin said. “That’s why I asked. I was worried they’d missed sending mine.”

“Oh! Right, then. I’m sure you’ll have done brilliantly,” Arthur said, and then launched into an almost incomprehensible babble about all sorts of things, which Martin managed to put a stop to after twenty minutes or so, by claiming that he was needed by his mother. And almost immediately afterwards, he was greeted with another phone call, this time from Linda.

“Why the hell are you suddenly so concerned about results?” she said, foregoing a greeting entirely.

“Because I’ve probably failed!”

“Yeah, but where’s this come from?”

“My brother just got his in.”

“… Right. Well, he goes to a different university, Martin, I wouldn’t worry about it. Anyway, my break’s almost over, I’d better get back to Dad’s paperwork,” she said, and hung up.

Karl responded to his Facebook message later, with _I’ve got mine, but I’ve just finished with third year. They send ours early so we know if we’re graduating or not. Don’t worry about it, Martin, I’m sure you’ve done fine._

This was not very reassuring.

Douglas and Carolyn didn’t get back to him until they’d both finished with work: Douglas with a brief phone call (“Martin, there’s no need to worry, they’ll come when they come”), and Carolyn with a Facebook message ( _As I’m sure Douglas and Arthur and the rest of the world have told you by now, I don’t think anybody has their results yet_ ).

All in all, a barrage of reassurances which merely served to make Martin feel a bit silly for having panicked in the first place.

But then, two days later, Simon reappeared at home high on the joy of his own successes. Daily, he’d pose the question of whether Martin’s results had arrived – and if Martin had felt tense and prone to bickering _before_ Simon had achieved a first, it was nothing to the neverending arguments that seemed to be going on these days.

A fortnight or so later, when Martin was preparing to pack up and go and stay with Caitlin just to avoid the constant worry, a letter arrived with Martin’s name scrawled across the front and a university stamp in the corner. Thanking every deity he wasn’t entirely certain he believed in that nobody else had spotted it, he ran upstairs to his bedroom to check how he’d done.

He ripped open the envelope, and, hands fumbling, dropped the folded paper. Picking it up, he peered, breath coming faster and faster, suddenly certain he’d failed everything –

Down one side was a list of all his modules, with numbers like 61 and 39 and 75 flitting about all over the place and not quite making sense to him – so he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and had another look.

He had a first in Theory of Aviation. A first! And he had 2:1 grades in the other theory modules, and in the maths ones – and then, there at the bottom, was 39% in the practical flying module. A fail, by a single percentage point.

He could retake the module, of course. There was nothing stopping him passing on into second year, so long as he retook (and passed) that practical flying module at some point before he graduated. And he hadn’t done badly, at all – he’d done really well in everything else! And it was only one percentage point, which he was sure he’d learn to beat eventually. He had another practical flying module in second year, after all, so there was no chance for him to forget everything he’d learnt in first year.

It was just … a little disheartening, seeing that little fail grade in the one module he’d been most desperate to do well in.


End file.
